The concept of conscious evolution refers to the theoretical ability of human beings to become conscious participants in the evolution of their cultures, or even of the entirety of human society, based on a relatively recent combination of factors, including increasing awareness of cultural and social patterns, reaction against perceived problems with existing patterns, injustices, inequities, and other factors.
[7] Owing to the broad definition of the term, numerous writers and thinkers, from a range of fields and backgrounds have contributed ideas to the concept of conscious evolution.
These include; Erich Jantsch, Teilhard de Chardin, Jonas Salk, Ervin Laszlo, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Bela H. Banathy, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Andrew Cohen, David Bohm, Eric Chaisson, Duane Elgin, Brian Swimme, Ken Wilber, Jorge Taborga, Robert Cobbold, Alexander Zelitchenko and others.
We are emerging from our gregarious condition and are now to enter on the rational way of living by scanning our relations to one another, instead of bluntly feeling them, and so adjusting them that unimpeded progress on this higher plane is secured."
[11] Atlee suggested that many of the factors of co-intelligence (wisdom, intentionality, choice, awareness) could be used as tools to enhance consciousness and improve shared circumstances.
Eric Chaisson similarly identified ‘knowledge’ and ‘compassion’ as key guiding forces for the future,[12] stating in 1987 that we must “act wisely, quite beyond intelligently, in order to achieve successful ethical evolution”.
[14] In an otherwise positive review of her 1998 book Conscious Evolution; Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, Scott London commented that much of the evidence provided was “soft” and “anecdotal”.